Three Friends- Philadelphia, June 20th

Last week I was able to see the quasi-reunion of 1970s progressive rock band Gentle Giant. Original guitarist Gary Green and one time drummer Malcolm Mortimore initially began playing the old tunes as "Rentle Giant" before former keyboardist Kerry Minnear joined up and they renamed themselves "Three Friends." My main motivation for seeing this show was not only my love for Gentle Giant's music, but also to see how well some of these new musicians joining Green and Mortimore could perform what is considered even for prog to be extremely complex music. I believe the music of Gentle Giant to be an intense endurance test and definitely concert worthy.

I saw them play on June 20th at the Keswick Theater in Glenside, Pennsylvania, right outside of Philadelphia. I've seen a few progressive rock shows at the Keswick such as King Crimson and ROSfest and it's just a fantastic venue in general. There is not a bad seat in the house. My seat was actually in row X, but considering the fact that the venue wasn't even half full, I was bumped up to the fourth row despite paying 29 dollars (plus service charges).

Opening the show was the Mahavishnu Project, a tribute band to the jazz fusion legends, Mahavishnu Orchestra. I must say that these guys knew exactly every single part that the original band played and were absolutely awe inspiring. The drummer, Gregg Bendian, who has also played with Pat Metheny and Ornette Coleman was a powerhouse behind the drum kit and I wouldn't have been surprised if he nearly brought the venue to its foundations. The rest of the band was rounded out by guitarist Glenn Alexander, who was a virtuoso on the fretboard, Neil Alexander, who's synthesizer patterns were spot on the entire night, Peter Brendler on bass, who kept a steady pattern and matched Bendian's drumming. Finally, Zach Brock played some fantastic violin solos that would have made original Mahavishnu violinist Jerry Goodman stand up and take notice.

After an amazing set by them, the Three Friends themselves came up onstage to play. The band featured original Giant members Gary Green and Malcolm Mortimore of course, but also newcomers Roger Carey on bass, John Donaldson on keyboards, replacing Kerry Minnear who has since left the group, Andy Williams on guitar, and Pierre Bordeleaux filling in for current Three Friends vocalist Mick Wilson. The band opened with "Prologue", before moving onto the "hits" such as "Playing the Game" and "Advent of Panurge". Gary Green was having some minor guitar string difficulties which led to some interesting banter between him and Malcolm Mortimore. Interestingly enough, the band played "Proclamation" which was apparently debuted at NEARfest a few days before. Another nice surprise was "I Lost My Head" which was interesting to hear mostly to see how well Bordeleaux could hit those notes. The band rounded up the show with playing an encore that included both "Freehand" and "Giant" and led to a standing ovation. It may not have been the original band, but regardless it was a very fine show and it's nice that the older fans and newer fans such as myself were able to hear the classics performed in concert.